REXML::Parent#index does not return nil

[TAKANO Noriyuki]

Hi all,

This is my first posting to ruby-talk.
I regularly use REXML, appreciating those who are making and
supporting it. But wishing it (or bug?) would be fixed, I
wonder if this mailing list is an appropriate place to report
a problem I see in REXML.

problem:
REXML:arent#index(obj) does not return nil but the last index
of children of the parent
when the argument is not a child of the parent.
In the ruby-doc of REXML:arent, parent.index method is described:
index(child)
Fetches the index of a given child
@param child the child to get the index of
@return the index of the child, or nil if the object is
not a child of this parent.

The cause for not returning nil is obvious in the source code of
Parent#index (REXML 3.1.3)
def index( child )
count = -1
@children.find { |i| count += 1 ; i.hash == child.hash }
count
end

Should it be something like this?
def index( child )
count = -1
- @children.find { |i| count += 1 ; i.hash == child.hash }
+ @children.find { |i| count += 1 ; i.hash == child.hash } ? count : nil
end

Sample code:
require 'rexml/document'
include REXML
root = Element.new("root")
p [ Element.new("a", root), Element.new("b", root),
Element.new("c")].collect{|ele|
root.index(ele)
}

alt = Element.new("alt")
def alt.index( child )
count = -1
@children.find { |i| count += 1 ; i.hash == child.hash } ? count : nil
end

p [Element.new("a", alt), Element.new("b", alt),
Element.new("c")].collect{|ele|
alt.index(ele)
}

Regards
nori

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